I couldn't work out why either - but then thought 'why not?' They look wonderful. Some ships today are about as lovely as shoeboxes (I'm thinking of some of the ferries I see in Portsmouth Harbour). Of course, some Traveller ships are about as pretty [1] so perhaps that's just par for the course.
But the sleek styling of a billionaire's yacht was what I was going for in a 'County' class yacht I designed for Second Scions' Society [2], however I never dreamed big enough to think galleon!?
(This isn't connected to the two-space project from ages back, is it?)
tc
[1] And I'm not going to pretend that, for example, the Naklad is anything but 'blocky' at best!
[2] I really ought to accept that I'm not getting very far writing the murder mystery sequel I had intended and send SSS off to someone to see if they're interested in publishing it. Of course, then my utter lack of being a Belbin 'completer-finisher' comes into play as my brain fuses over MgT2, Cepheus Engine, TAS, or what? (it's currently MgT1, not that there are a lot of rules to be honest). But it seemed to go down well enough in a couple of runs at TravCon a year or four back to think there might be wider interest.